


184 Birds for Christmas

by decanthrope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Awkward Sexual Situations, Birds, Christmas, Gift Exchange, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Sexual Content, The Summary is Absolutely Clickbait, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 10:06:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8975260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decanthrope/pseuds/decanthrope
Summary: Draco wasn’t expecting anything usual to happen this Christmas. Standard protocol for him was to go to the Manor, have an uncomfortable meal, and spend the day pretending they didn’t all hate each other. That was why, when he woke on the morning of the 17th and found cocks had taken over his living room, Draco was surprised.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JulietsEmoPhase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulietsEmoPhase/gifts).



> This was written for the Drarry Exchange over on [tumblr!](http://decanthrope.tumblr.com/) I got [JulietsEmoPhase](/users/julietsemophase) for my Secret Santa recipient, and I'm super excited to gift this! I had so much fun writing it, though it kind of got away from me a little bit, haha. I really hope you enjoy it, though I'm sorry it ended up being so long!

Draco was startled out of trying to find a way to end his argument with his father by a tentativeknock at the door. At first, he fancied it a figment of his imagination and tuned back out on his father bellowing about family honour, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

He would have written it off entirely if it hadn’t come again moments later, just as his father was reaching the peak of his tirade about how Draco’s priorities were completely misaligned with what the Malfoy name stood for.

This time, Draco was convinced he wasn’t hearing things, and sent a quick word of thanks to whichever deity that had been listening in on his thoughts and granted him this small favour. Hewould that he could only be so lucky every time his father took up one of his rants.

Draco coughed politely. His father didn’t so much as stutter in his fulmination.

“Oh, shut up, will you?” he said in exasperation.

There was always an inherent sense of satisfaction to be had in the way his father’s eyes bulged out of his head and his teeth clicked shut in surprise when Draco snapped at his parents. That was, of course, before the shock wore off and he started vociferating even more vehemently—and loudly.

Before he could wind himself back up again, Draco continued, barely trying to restrain the smug condescension in his voice.

“It’s been lovely chatting, father, but I really must go. Things to do, people to see, you understand. Give my love to mother.”

Then, without warning, he promptly ended the firecall on his father’s astounded face and made his way to the door. Halfway there, the fireplace roared back to life and he heard the sound of his father shrieking for him to return that instant.

Draco rolled his eyes, safe in the knowledge that his father would never know, and ignored him.

The knock came again, this time more insistent than previously.

He was expecting Delia again, the older woman who lived in the flat next to his. She liked to stick her head out every time he entered or left his flat to complain about a truly ridiculous number of things from the unnatural colour of his hair (which was _perfectly_ natural, thank you very much) to not walking quietly enough to not having been home when a mail owl had come calling.

Draco was getting sick of her nagging.

“What?” he barked when he threw the door open.

It wasn’t Delia on his stoop. In fact, it was probably the farthest thing from Delia he could have ever expected. Never in his wildest dreams could he have predicted _this_.

There, posing as if he were going to knock again, stood a man who looked half as harassed as Draco felt. He was dressed in the eye-watering puce robes that belonged to the Law Enforcement Patrol, but when Draco was able to focus past the tragic shade, he was surprised to note two things: that the man was unconscionably handsome, and that he couldn’t be older than Draco.

Obviously caught off guard by the rude answer, he froze,arm raised awkwardly, eyes open wide behind smeared glasses and wild hair.

“Yes?” Draco drawled.

In the background, his father was still caterwauling at him to come back.

The man blinked and withdrew his hand, running it through his hair and making it stand up in all directions. Draco followed its progression, but kept his mouth shut. It wouldn’t become him to insult a wizard of the law, especially if he was here on official business—and Draco really couldn’t think of any other reason a member of the LEP would be on his doorstep.

“Mr. Malfoy, my name is Harry Potter, from the Law Enforcement Patrol.” Draco bit back the “ _obviously”_ that so badly wanted to crawl its way out his mouth. “I’ve had complaints from some of the building’s residents about noise coming from your flat.”

Draco blinked. Potter blinked back, but didn’t say anything else. It became clear he was waiting on a response from Draco. Draco wanted to sigh.

“Yes, _and?”_ he asked pointedly, crossing his arms over his chest and resisting the urge to tap his foot.

He wasn’t surprised considering his reception after moving in, but he was still stung that _Delia_ —because, honestly, who _else_ could it have been? Who would have the sheer _nerve_ to cause a fuss like this and call the DMLE on him—had made an official complaint.

He’d obviously have to get her back somehow. Maybe flood her flat with toads or jinx it so her furniture kept rearranging itself without her input. That would show her….

The man, Harry Potter, sighed and scratched his stubbly cheek. Draco dragged his eyes over Harry’s face again, noting the purple bags under his eyes and his waxy complexion. He looked terrible, like he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in some time. Despite all that, though, Draco couldn’t help but think that he was attractive man underneath it all. At the very least, he wore the tired look well.

“Look, I don’t want trouble, okay? Just… could you maybe try to keep the noise down a little bit? It would really help me out.”

He looked pleadingly at Draco, and without conscious thought or design, Draco found himself nodding. Relief bloomed over Harry’s face and he smiled at Draco gratefully.

As he eyed the smile, his father’s words rang his head about unflappability and not being charmed by any pretty face that happened to walk by. Well, Draco justified, this one was stood at his door, and his father certainly hadn’t been on the end of _this_ particular smile, so surely he couldn’t come down on Draco too hard for being taken in by it.

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Draco tried to act as unaffected as possible.

“This close to Christmas, concessions for the needy _are_ expected,” he said sarcastically, and had the pleasure of seeing Harry attempt to stifle a laugh.

“Right. We wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of being a grinch.”

“Well,” Draco drawled, leaning up against the doorjamb. “I have to ensure _one_ way or another I don’t make it onto Santa’s naughty list.”

Across from him, Harry inhaled sharply, and he smirked. He didn’t need to be a particularly skilled Legilimens to guess what sort of things might be running through the officer’s mind.

“Er, right…” Harry said after a moment during which Draco observed him unabashedly. “Well, thanks for not being difficult. About the noise complaint, I mean.”

Draco felt his lip curl.

“The person who reported me could have very well used a silencing charm if they were so bothered.”

“They really couldn’t have.” When he noticed Draco’s glare, raised his eyebrows back. “The person in question is a squib. And you _know_ silencing charms aren’t a long-term solution.”

Draco glared back mutinously until Harry threw his hands in the air.

“Listen, I’ll speak with he—them,” he corrected himself, and Draco fought to not roll his eyes. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

“There’s no need to hide who it is, I know it was Delia. I _said_ I’d try not to be as loud, and I will.”

That restored the smile to Harry’s face and the funny feeling in his stomach that Draco dismissed.

“Thanks,” Harry said again, and they stood there awkwardly, staring at each other until Draco cocked an eyebrow and Harry seemed to realize what he was doing. He let out a breath, smiled vaguely and ran a hand through his hair once more.

Draco tracked the motion keenly and had to tamp down on the desire to run his own hands through Harry’s hair, and surreptitiously crossed his arms over his chest more firmly to prevent himself from acting on a spur of the moment impulse. Touching was probably not a good idea. At least not while Harry was on the job.

“I’d better get going,” Harry said, pulling Draco out of his thoughts, and he pushed himself off the doorjamb, stepping back into his flat. “Happy Christmas!”

Harry spun on his heel then and started his way back down the hallway. Draco repeated the sentiment, but by then, Harry was already halfway down the corridor.

The next moment, the door to Delia’s flat was creaking open and Delia stuck her head around it. When she caught sight of him, she made a disconcerting sound, whipped back out of sight, and slammed her door shut.

Draco glared at her it waspishly before he retreated into his own flat and ran a hand down his face. He didn’t quite know what to feel about Delia at the moment.

On the one hand, he was annoyed that she had gone as far as making an official complaint about him rather than confronting him directly—because Draco certainly didn’t count a handful of snide comments as a direct application for peace and quiet.

On the other hand, if she _hadn’t_ , he wouldn’t have had the pleasure of getting to meet Harry Potter, and _that,_ if nothing else, would be a criminal thing.

Maybe he wouldn’t jinx her to grow webbed feet after all. Maybe he’d just charm all her flour mouldy. She seemed like the sort to indulge in Christmas baking, and Draco could think of no better way to get back at her for being a nosy rat.

In his living room, his father had started up his tirade again, speaking loudly about respect and treating his elders with honour as if he knew Draco was still there, just hiding from him.

For all his talk, Draco probably didn’t have a chance in hell of ending up anywhere _but_ Santa’s naughty list. This he thought as he contemplated what the building manager would have to say if he blasted apart the fireplace entirely.

—

Two weeks later, Draco woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of angry crowing outside his bedroom door.

Bleary-eyed and confused, he stumbled out of bed and into his living room, where the sight of six angry-looking roosters greeted him from various points around the room. One of the cocks was standing on the back of his couch, its dirty feet doing likely irreparable damage to the soft white leather.

It kept its cock-a-doodle-doo going past the point when its brethren had stopped.

“Shut up!” he hissed at the bird, who kept crowing without paying any heed to Draco.

An angry series of thumps came from the wall on the other side of the room, and Draco thought he heard Delia’s voice shouting at him, though it was too muffled to make out any distinct words.

He turned back to the bird, who had _finally_ decided to shut up and was now strutting back and forth on his couch. It was a matter of minutes before he realized there was a note tied to its scaly foot, though when he tried to grab it, the stupid thing took off screeching bloody murder.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, glaring angrily at the cocks in his living room.

Draco moodily stormed into his bedroom to retrieve his wand from under his pillow and stomped his way back to where the roosters were in the process of colonizing his living room.

Put upon, he fired a stunning hex at the rooster with the note tied to its leg, and took great satisfaction in the loud _thump_ that resounded through his flat as it fell off the coffee table and hit the floor.

“Don’t you even think about it,” he sneered as one of the other roosters started advancing on him, wings flapping and head bobbing aggressively. He eyed it warily for a moment before deciding it wasn’t a threat and moved toward the stunned bird.

Draco was no fool—he knew how vicious cocks could be: he had seen firsthand the damage cockfighting could do. Draco had no desire to end up at St. Mungo’s at quarter past seven in the morning on a Saturday this close to Christmas.

The rooster was smarter than Draco gave him credit for, however, and it was only after it took what felt like a very significant chunk out of his leg that he realized turning his back on it was probably not a smart thing to have done.

In a foul mood, he stunned the stupid thing, and then, for good measure, stunned the rest.

He ran a hand through his hair and contemplated the fact that this was even a part of his life. When he felt a little more composed, he plucked the note off the chicken’s leg and snapped it open.

_Malfoy,_ it read.

_We heard this song last night and thought you would like the gift._

It was signed—sloppily— _Love, Crabbe and Goyle_ , and beneath their names, there was a post script, almost completely illegible. Draco squinted at it.

_P.S. It’s for the 6th day, what colly birds. Couldn’t find any collies that weren’t dogs. Roosters’ll do._

Draco was speechless. He had no idea how to even process the idea of Crabbe and Goyle having heard, and apparently, associated the romantic song with _him:_ Draco Lucius Malfoy! It even said it in the song: “on the X day of Christmas, _my true love_ gave to me….” It was disturbing to think that they apparently felt the need to fill that role in Draco’s life. Disturbing and uncomfortable.

Not only that, but they had been so inspired, they had felt the need to buy half a dozen roosters—Draco didn’t even know _where_ they would have got them, never mind so late at night—and sneak them into his flat (undetected!) to ambush him before he’d even had the chance to have a cup of coffee.

Draco absolutely regretted giving them his new floo address. What a nightmare.

He surveyed the state of his lounge once more, the chaos of knocked over items, the mess of feathers that littered the floor, and the _smell!_ It was almost worse than troll! How he was going to get it out of the upholstery escaped him. It might be worth getting rid of everything and starting from scratch.

Draco stopped processing when he spotted what could only have been excrement on his favourite commode, which was not only an antique, but a family heirloom.

The nasty grey and green splotch stared back at him wetly, unmoving, and Draco felt his temper boil over.

Wordlessly, he turned and left his living room for the safety of the kitchen. Thankfully, there were no more birds, and everything looked to be at rights.

Draco decided that what he needed first and foremost before he decided on any one action was a strong Irish coffee. Maybe even without the coffee—and wouldn’t his father be proud to know he had taken after him after all, at least in some way.

—

Draco was in the process of dragging the last of the bloody birds he’d woken up to find in his living room out of his flat through the fire escape when Delia’s door opened.

Draco had a moment to close his eyes and prepare himself before Delia appeared in the doorway, and angry scowl on her face.

“You’re being inconsiderate! Do you know what time it is?” she scolded, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him as though he were the antichrist himself. “Have some respect for everyone else who lives here!”

He couldn’t very well ignore her, as she would take that as an affront and personal invitation to start lecturing him on proper manners and respecting elders. Really, Draco hoped she and his father never met: if they did, he was sure life as he knew it would end immediately in a fiery rain of opinion and lecturing.

Draco took a deep breath in through his nose, plastered the most sincere smile he could muster on his face, and turned to face her, squawking bird in arms and all.

“Delia, darling, you’re looking lovely today as usual. How are the grandkids? Well, I hope.”

Draco was hoping that the old adage “kill them with kindness” would be an apt solution when dealing with his crotchety neighbour. Unfortunately, instead of having the intended effect, Delia seemed to become even more dour, and Draco felt his heart sink.

“You’re being too loud!” she growled angrily, and slammed the door shut on him again.

Draco slumped where he stood, closed his eyes, and talked himself through the mantra of calming thoughts he had prepared just for situations like this.

“You are Draco Malfoy. You are not upset by a measly little squib. You are _not_ upset. You are _awe_ -inspiring. You are _almighty._ Nature quivers before you! You are glorious, Malfoy.”

The rooster in his arms took that moment to squawk in indignant rage. Apparently, he didn’t agree that Draco was a cosmically divine being who should be universally celebrated.

Draco frowned down at it.

“And this is exactly why I’m getting rid of you,” he told it seriously in the stairwell.

The silly thing mad a petulant sound and bobbed its head belligerently.

“Honestly, pull yourself together,” he said, pushing the door open with his back and walking backwards out of the building. “It’s just a difference of opinion. I’m fantastic, and you’re just a bloody chicken. It would never work between us. You’ve got to go.”

There was an indiscreet cough behind him, and Draco whirled around, setting the bird in his arms off again. This was just another reason to get rid of the ridiculous thing: it would challenge Draco for attention, and that was just unacceptable. Draco had a pathological _need_ to be the centre of attention in whatever he did. Sharing that with a ruddy _chicken_ of all things was not going to cut it.

“It’s not.”

When he turned, he found LEP Harry Potter standing before him.

Draco took a moment to look him over appreciatively.

Instead of his work robes, Potter was wearing a sport jersey that was stained with sweat around the collar and chest, and a pair of jogging shorts that left his legs bare for Draco’s appreciation. He was also delectably flushed, and glistening with sweat. Draco felt his mouth go dry, and then promptly flooded as his salivary glands kicked into overdrive.

Harry shifted his weight awkwardly under Draco’s gaze, and he snapped his eyes up to meet Harry’s with no small feeling of guilt.

“What?” he asked faintly, only vaguely remembering that Harry had said anything at all.

“Technically, it’s a rooster,” Harry elaborated. He sounded uncertain, though, as if he was completely unaware of what being all flushed and sweaty was doing to Draco. He spoke like he thought his appearance had somehow broken Draco. Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong…. Draco certainly _felt_ broken. With some reluctance, he sucked his eyeballs back into his skull and pulled himself together, straightening out of his unsteady stance and tightening his hold on the now-quiescent animal.

“Yes, it’s so _very_ important to be accurate, isn’t it?” he teased once he had his wits back about him. “Better yet, we should just call it what it is and say I’ve got a cock in my hands and be done with it.”

Almost immediately, he wished he could pluck the words out of the air and lock them away somewhere where they never had the chance to escape and assault Harry’s ears again.

Draco was getting ready to dive headlong into a spiral of all-consuming embarrassment—what _was_ it about Harry that lowered Draco’s barriers? And how _dare_ he do such a thing! Honestly!—when Harry laughed, shocking him out of his impending mortification.

“Just one?” he asked, and then gestured to the crate with the other five roosters stuffed into it. “Looks like you have pretty decent experience handling cocks.”

Right about then was when Draco short-circuited. To be more accurate, it happened right _after_ Draco had the presence of mind to realize that—good _god,_ Harry was _flirting_ with him! That was when his brain, helpful thing that it was, decided to abandon him to his basal instincts, which was never in Draco’s best interests, but even less so when in the presence of someone he found attractive.

Case in point: “You’d certainly find out if you let me handle yours,” he blurted without any consideration at all.

Draco wanted to die. Good lord did he want the ground to open up and swallow him out of existence, or for a crazed, feral Veela to swoop down from the heavens to snatch him away for a brutal and excruciating end to his mortal existence. Draco wasn’t picky—he’d take either. Whichever happened first, really.

But the seconds ticked by, and Draco was neither crushed or mauled, and across from him, Harry was turning red in a charming and terrible way that was in no way good for Draco’s constitution.

It probably hadn’t been smart to proposition an officer of the law. Merlin, Draco couldn’t believe he had just done that. Worst of all, his brain didn’t even have the decency to replace his racing litany of self-depreciatory thoughts with endless eternal screaming. Draco was mortified.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to be struck down by some magnanimous, providential force, Draco cleared his throat.

“Erm,” he said. It was painful. “Is there a reason you’re here this time? Delia hasn’t reported me again, has she?”

“Uh, no, she didn’t. I actually live here. 2-stroke-6, that’s me.”

Draco processed that slowly. If Harry was 2/6, and _he_ was 3/6, then it meant he was directly under Draco.

That thought was a pleasing one if only for the imagery it stirred up, but also did nothing to help him keep from blushing as brightly as a cooked lobster after what he had just done.

“So,” he hurried to continue, latching on to the first thing that slid through his head. “When you said there was a complaint about me two weeks ago…?”

He tried not to be too upset at the idea of Harry being the one with the complaint.

Thankfully, Harry seemed to catch on to Draco’s thoughts with little trouble, and he watched Harry’s eyes widen.

“No!” Harry practically shouted, then stopped to run an aggravated hand through his hair. He took a breath, smiled grimly and tried again. “No. I didn’t lie when I said someone complained, but it wasn’t me. Sometimes the noise is annoying, yeah, but mostly the thumps at three in the morning when I’m trying to sleep. I don’t hear through the ceiling so much, but the crashes and bangs come through loud and clear.”

Draco dropped his eyes. Two days ago, he had hauled his six foot Christmas tree up the fire escape and into his flat the muggle way on account of it not properly fitting through his floo grate and living things being finicky about being shrunk down and resized according to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration. He could only imagine the thumps and bumps he must have subjected Harry to then, never mind the dozens of other instances that leapt all too easily to mind off the top of his head.

He also felt a niggling sense of guilt for having assumed Harry had been hiding his own annoyance for him behind a fake complaint—and even worse, for thinking he might have abused his authority to tell Draco to shut up officially.

He stroked the chicken in his arms to avoid looking at Harry and his no doubt disappointed expression.

Really, the rooster wasn’t so bad when it wasn’t waking him up at the crack of dawn. And its plumage really was quite nice, he thought, admiring the smattering of pearlescent colours.

Across from him, Harry sighed, and he peeked up through his lashes to see Harry shift his weight again, rubbing his arms. Without a coat or any real protection from the elements, Draco was feeling the chill—he could only imagine what it must have felt like to Harry now that he wasn’t running anymore, _especially_ the places where he had sweat through his clothes.

“What are all these for anyway?” Harry asked, gesturing to the roosters. Draco startled out of his thoughts and huffed in exasperation.

“Some of my friends heard that muggle song about the twelve days of Christmas. They thought it would be a good idea to spring _six calling birds_ on me in the middle of the night.”

Harry laughed, and Draco smiled to hear the sound, his irritation with Crabbe and Goyle fading into the background once again.

“These friends of yours—they know it’s _six geese a-laying_ , right? And it’s the twelve days _after_ Christmas, not before, that are celebrated?”

Draco shook his head resignedly.

“I don’t think they do,” he said honestly. “They were pretty smashed, I imagine, and it was likely the first time they’d heard it.”

“I don’t know _where_ ,” Harry mused, scratching his stubbly cheek absently. “No halfway decent pub would play that shite.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow.

“Not a fan, then?”

Harry looked at him as if he was crazy.

Instead of giving a proper answer, he said, blankly, “Don’t tell me you are.”

“ _I_ happen to think it’s a romantic song,” he stated primly, pulling himself up straight and staring down his nose at Potter. He imagined the effect was somewhat ruined by all the clucking at their feet, but no one could have denied that Draco had inherited the Malfoy imperiousness, even if it fell a little short in the presence of poultry—at least of the common variety. His father kept peacocks, and nothing said peremptoriness quite like a peacock on full display.

Harry laughed again, waving his hands placatingly before himself.

“Alright, alright, it’s romantic. I’ll have to keep that in mind,” he said, and then even had the audacity to _wink_ at Draco.

Draco realized this could be considered flirting again, and felt the beginning of a pleased blush begin to heat his ears.

Before it could fully spread, however, the door to the fire escape behind him banged open noisily, startling him into whirling around for the second time that day and, unfortunately, startling the roosters into screaming at the sudden noise.

It was Delia, glaring at him and the crate at their feet, before her gaze lifted to Harry. As Draco watched, her countenance melted from irascibility to a cordial, if still slightly annoyed, expression.

“Mr. Potter,” she said imploringly, and Draco was surprised to hear her voice not as the bad-tempered croak he had become accustomed to over the last several months, but sweet and airy.

Draco blinked, and then stared disbelievingly. Delia ignored him completely, focusing on Harry singularly.

“Please tell me there’s been _some_ small success with this… this… this _hooligan_.”

Draco let out a breath of air between his teeth at the appellation and tensed.

He didn’t turn to look at Harry, unsure of what he would see and unwilling to in the event that it was anything negative.

“Delia,” Harry’s tone was stiff and authoritative. He could hear the smile in Harry’s voice, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile—if Draco had to guess, he would have said it was tense and forced. “Draco and I are working to come to some sort of solution that will benefit everyone involved. It may take some time, but I’m sure we’ll get there.”

“Yes, but _how much more time?”_ Delia pressed, losing some of her pleasantness in the process. “I can’t keep going on like this, waking up to roosters and the shouting and the noise!”

“Delia,” Harry said again, and he sounded tired and harried. “This morning wasn’t Draco’s fault. I know what it looks like, but I hope you can trust me when I say we’re working on it. We _all_ want to resolve this as quickly and amicably as possible.”

Delia huffed and looked like she very much wanted to stamp her foot, but to Draco’s great surprised, she nodded curtly and turned to disappear back into the building.

Only then did Draco turn around to catch Harry’s eyes.

“Thanks,” he said sincerely. He didn’t look away, because despite his father’s opinion on the matter, he did have some small understanding of how manners worked and behaviour fitting of a decent, respectable person.

If Harry’s smile was reward for using those manners, Draco felt he could be persuaded to bring them out on a much more regular basis.

Harry broke the gaze, ducking his head. Draco couldn’t tell if the flush on his face was residual from the run he’d been on, the ensuing situation with Delia, or from Draco’s scrutiny, though he was hoping not-so-secretly on the last of the options if he was being honest with himself. Harry was absolutely charming. Draco wanted him. He wanted him _badly._ It was actually kind of disgusting how much.

“What are you going to do with them?” Harry asked, nudging the crate with his foot.

Draco sighed, feeling the full weight of the world settle back upon his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he admitted glumly, and finally put the rooster he was holding down with its companions.

“As much as I hate to say it, Delia’s right: you can’t keep them in your flat.”

Draco knew that. If not for Delia’s sake, then for his own. He didn’t think he could handle having six roosters in his flat and come out with his sanity intact. He’d only had them for… who knew how many hours and he was already convinced they had to go. Draco spent a moment lamenting the state of his living room before he shook himself out of it.

“I suppose I can put them in the garden,” he said reluctantly. “At least until I figure out what to do with them permanently.”

“Brilliant,” Harry smiled, and Draco returned the gesture.

And that seemed to be that.

—

The weekend didn’t seem to get any better after that. In fact, the next several days came down on Draco meanly.

Draco spent all of one afternoon contemplating whether the universe was having one on over him, making him pay for all of his egregious behaviour over the years.

After careful reflection, he had dismissed the idea, as the only truly unforgivable things he had ever done were to wear white after Labour Day once when he was eight and hadn’t known any better, and the one time he had stolen Pansy’s tube of mascara to try it out for himself. (The mascara had been a horrible mistake.)

Crabbe and Goyle had seen fit to continue sending him gifts via floo, according to the blasted song, though none of them seemed to match up with the lyrics—at least not in the usual order.

On Sunday, Draco had returned to his flat after dinner to find five Christmas wreaths strung up around his flat; four sets of those Russian doll sets that could be cracked open to reveal smaller dolls, painted not like babushkas, but pure white cockatiels; three sets of glasses stacked in pyramids on his toilet counter with sultry-looking women doing profane things to cows.

The wreathes he didn’t mind. He could even put up with the nesting dolls: they were creepy and weird, but as long as he didn’t have to look at them, they were fine. It was the glasses that got to him.

On Monday, he had found two stuffed mute swans, arranged so their necks formed a heart on his pillows in his bedroom, and later, when he had gone into the kitchen, he found the tattered remains of a fig tree and the most disappointed-looking eagle owl Draco had ever had the misfortune of seeing tied by leather thongs to the plant’s corpse.

Luckily, it seemed as though Delia either hadn’t heard the commotion that it would have surely taken to move everything in, or she hadn’t been at home either time.

Of course, the alternative was that she _had_ been home and was now plotting his gruesome murder and method of disposing of his body, and that thought terrified him: Draco was too young and handsome to die! Moreover, he didn’t feel he had enough people to sufficiently mourn him and think of his unfortunate demise with great sadness for the next fifty years.

That evening, he had tried to fire call both Crabbe and Goyle, but neither were home to answer, and it was with a great deal of frustration that Draco went to bed that night.

The next morning, he discovered that the stuffed swans were a lot more intimidating in the light of day than they had been the night before. When he opened his eyes, they were less than a foot from his face, their serrated bills gleaming in the weak winter light, and their beady red eyes shiny and terrifyingly intense. He'd shrieked and nearly fallen out of bed in terror before remembering that they were from Crabbe and Goyle, and hadn't snuck into his flat of their own volition to murder him.

Draco had to remind himself that they weren’t _actually_ alive, no matter how realistic they looked, but they still creeped him out.

Later, he realized there were six litres of milk in his fridge with a note spello-taped to the frontmost jug in Goyle’s hand, informing it was the counterpart to the milking maids. Why six litres he didn’t know. He could only assume they were going all out.

Draco moved the swans to sit behind the toilet, where he would hopefully never have to see them again, and ignored the owl completely when it hooted at him dolefully when he had returned to the kitchen to try to figure out what to do with the milk.

—

After he’d had lunch, Draco went down to the garden where he had stored the roosters. Though the area was communal, nobody ever seemed to use it, and much of it was lost to tall grass and weeds. With Harry’s help, he had penned off a sizeable portion of the yard with the garden shed in it, and let them loose.

Draco spent the day trimming the grass and cleaning up the shed for the roosters, renewing the old heating charms and trying to fix the shed so the heat wouldn’t leak back out into the atmosphere immediately. Throughout this, the bloody birds ran underfoot and seemed to be actively trying to make a nuisance of themselves so he would trip over them. They were worse than cats.

He had just stumbled over Quintus and was in the middle of berating the bird when Harry found him.

“Don’t tell me that actually works,” he laughed, crossing his arms on top of the mesh fence and leaning on them.

Draco was briefly struck dumb.

Harry looked good. He had just got off work if his robes were anything to go by: they hung open down his chest, and Draco couldn’t help but think that even the colour wasn’t _that_ bad anymore. Under the robes was the real showstopper, however: Harry was wearing a muscle shirt that clung to his chest like Draco wanted to cling to him.

Draco licked his lips without thought.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said after he had spent a moment wondering what Harry’s hair would look like after a good romp in Draco’s bed, and after wondering if his eyes would sparkle or be glazed after. His voice came out rough, and, embarrassed, he cleared his throat. “Chickens are one of the most vapid creatures on Earth. After flobberworms, of course.”

Blaise had spent several months at school trying to train flobberworms for his O.W.L. level Magical Creatures class with little success. All they did was eat and flop around pathetically. Roosters could at least be used as semi-reliant alarm clocks. Semi-reliant alarm clocks with anxiety and a vicious streak, maybe, but at least they _had_ a use.

“Ah, of course,” Harry said dryly. “My mistake. It clearly makes sense to give a chicken a lecture on manners when it won’t understand. Don’t know what I was thinking. Carry on.”

The irony of what he was doing wasn’t lost on him: that despite his intense dislike of his father doing it to him, he was doing the same thing to his chickens. Maybe it was a genetic thing, passed down the bloodline, generation to generation.

“Curse of the Malfoy men,” he muttered under his breath, and then sighed.

Quintus, perhaps sensing his preoccupation, took the moment to escape the corner Draco had herded him into and made a mad dash across the yard to the garden shed.

Draco scowled after him while Harry laughed.

“Looks like they’re really ruffling your feathers,” he commented with a lighthearted air.

Draco, who had started making his way over to the fence to join him, stopped.

“Is that a pun?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Harry shrugged nonchalantly.

“What if it was?”

“I hate puns,” Draco told him, advancing again. “Especially when they’re at my expense.”

He had reached Harry now, who shifted so he was leaning more toward Draco, stupid grin in place and almost unbearably attractive.

“Huh,” Harry grunted, just an expulsion of air out of his chest. “I took you to be a pretty calm and collected kind of guy, but I guess, after all, you’re not all that—” he stopped here to waggle his eyebrows lamely. “—unflappable.”

There was a moment of silence after the delivery in which Draco tried to figure out whether it would be a criminal offence to smack Harry.

Then, suddenly, Harry was guffawing. Whether he was laughing at his own joke or the look on Draco’s face was unclear, but Draco was put out anyway. More than that, however, he was mesmerized by the sight of Harry laughing: eyes creased, green peeking through his lashes, the laugh lines around his mouth so tempting, and the shadow of stubble that made him want to reach out and touch it.

Harry’s lips looked soft, and before Draco really knew what he was doing, he had reached out— _was_ touching, pulling Harry’s face farther over the fence and up toward Draco’s, and then… then he was tasting Harry’s mouth.

Instantly, Harry had stopped laughing. Draco spared a brief moment to panic when Harry just stood there, mouth pressed against his, unresponsive.

Had Draco read it all wrong? Was Harry only interested in being friends? Could this be construed as sexual assault? Draco was wholly unprepared to survive life in prison!

And then Harry kissed him back, pressed a little closer and angled his head so they wouldn’t knock noses.

The kiss wasn’t especially passionate and didn’t last longer than a handful of moments, but by the end of it, Draco’s heart was rabbiting in his chest and his cheeks felt warm.

They pulled apart, but not far. Harry’s face was still incredibly close to Draco’s: was so close, in fact, that he could smell the soap he must use when he showered. Draco inhaled deeply and watched as Harry ran his tongue over his bottom lip before it disappeared back into his mouth.

_God,_ Draco wanted to have that tongue in his mouth.

“Don’t tell me that kissing me was just a way to get me to shut up,” Harry said quietly into the air between them.

Draco’s eyes snapped up to look into his. They reminded Draco of pond water, and he had to swallow before he could reply.

“Not _just_ to get you to shut up,” he admitted, smirking complacently. Harry’s eyes dropped to his mouth, and then he was the one initiating the kiss.

This time, he was able to coax Harry’s tongue into his mouth. It was maybe the sweetest kiss of his life, and when it ended, Draco rested his forehead against Harry’s, breathing his scent in while he regained both his breath and composure.

“If that’s your response, I’ll have to stock up on puns,” Harry breathed.

“It _is_ positive conditioning,” Draco agreed, and closed his eyes. “I probably shouldn’t. You’ll take it as a reward.”

“Absolutely,” Harry concurred, and didn’t sound even the slightest bit ashamed about it.

Draco huffed out a half-hearted laugh, allowed himself another moment to lean against him, and stepped back so they weren’t sharing such intimate space anymore.

“What are you doing for Christmas?”

Harry was grinning, and to Draco’s delight, his lips were red, shiny and slightly swollen-looking. Draco had a moment of giddy satisfaction during which he realized that he had done that— _he_ was responsible for the look, it had been _his_ mouth that had been pressed against Harry’s.

“I work the 24th, so I likely won’t be doing anything outside spending the day in bed,” Harry answered his question, licking his lips. It was distracting. “What about you?”

It took Draco a second to understand the question.

“Oh. I usually celebrate with my parents. The house elves make a feast and we all spend the day pretending we don’t all hate each other.”

Harry smiled.

“Sounds fairly typical,” he said, and Draco found himself laughing dryly.

“That’s before someone winds up drunk and making a competition out of antagonizing the peacocks,” he said, leaning in as if he was telling Harry a secret. To his immense pleasure, Harry’s pupils dilated.

“Erm… does that usually happen?”

Draco shrugged unaffectedly.

“More often than not.” It was as much tradition as getting drunk at Christmas dinner, and usually a byproduct of doing just that.

Draco had memories of his father dashing around the Manor’s extensive grounds after extended family who were shouting belligerently at peacocks who scattered and honked in distress.

“Sounds like a party.”

He could imagine better ways to spend the day, certainly more pleasurable ones, but kept that thought to himself. Instead, he smiled vaguely at Harry, and neglected to comment.

“Well, while you’re away, I don’t mind looking after the chickens for you.”

“Actually,” Draco stated, the thought coming to him all of a sudden. “I’ve just figured out what no do with them.”

Harry smiled brilliantly at him, and Draco matched it with one of his own.

“Great! I’m glad to hear it. I should get going: I really only stopped because I saw you from the street and wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Draco was alarmed by the impulse to say something cheesy, like: “right as rain”. He didn’t.

“Delia hasn’t been bothering you again?” Harry prompted when Draco didn’t reply immediately.

“I haven’t seen her since Saturday,” he murmured at last. He couldn’t shake the happiness at hearing that Harry had been worrying about him. “Maybe she’s left the country.”

Harry snorted and shook his head.

“I doubt it. Right, I’m off. See you around, Draco.”

Then he leaned in, placed a sweet kiss against Draco’s cheek and disappeared around the corner.

Meanwhile, Draco felt like he could fly—or pirouette around the garden in happiness. Harry liked him. Harry liked him! He had _kissed_ him! And more than once!

Tertius had wandered back over and was pecking at the ground around his feet, so he swooped the bird up into his arms and proceeded to waltz his way to the shed, laughing jubilantly and completely ignoring the chicken’s angry screeching and furious wriggling as he tried to free himself.

Above him, on the third floor, a window banged open.

“Stop that racket!” Delia bellowed down at him. Draco was in too good a mood to mind too much—after all, Harry _liked_ him!

Tertius, the spiteful thing he was, seemed to sense Draco’s good cheer, and released his bowels all over Draco’s Italian tailored trousers.

That put a slight damper on his mood.

—

After he had fed the birds, Draco returned to his flat, grateful to be returning to the warmth after nearly four hours outside in the miserable, damp weather.

He had showered, changed into his most comfortable pajamas (they had dancing dragons on them), and headed to the kitchen, still high on the feelings the kisses with Harry had inspired.

When he reached the doorway, however, all good feelings vanished from him, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

His entire kitchen was filled with eggs.

Draco’s counters were flooded with them so that the countertop was barely visible underneath them all. His table was occupied by an enormous basket filled with eggs stacked layer upon layer, and right in the middle of the floor stood three ginormous barrels filled with eggs of all colours and sizes.

Had Draco actually cared about eggs, he would have been in heaven, but as it was, Draco didn’t, and this felt more like a projection of what he imagined hell to be like, should he ever be so unlucky as to find his way there in the afterlife.

He spied another letter by the basket, and, resignedly, picked up and unfolded it, dreading the note inside.

_On the seventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me 7 barrels of eggs (from the geese what come before)!_

_Thought you might like eggs._

_Love,_

_Crabbe & Goyle_

Draco wordlessly marched into his living room and put through a fire call to Crabbe. No response.

Peevishly, he tried again, calling out the address to Goyle’s place. His head spun dizzyingly past a number of hearths until he finally stopped. To his great annoyance, it was blocked off.

“Pansy’s flat,” he commanded, and a moment later, he was staring up at her through the coals.

“Draco!” she squealed, flinging the magazine she had been reading aside and prancing her way closer. “What a pleasant surprise! I haven’t seen you in _forever!”_

“Have you seen Greg and Vincent?”

Pansy stopped nattering at his interjection immediately, and he watched as her eyes bulged and cheeks puffed in confusion.

“Why would I? They’re in Spain or Italy or Hungary or somewhere mediterranean like that. It’s _so_ unfair,” she enthused. “I _begged_ daddy to take us all to one of our little vacation cottages, you know, and he refused! _Refused!_ I’m not talking to him for the rest of Christmas.”

“Fascinating,” he said, ignoring her completely. “ _Why_ are they in Spain or Italy or Hungary?”

At this, Pansy looked at him weirdly.

“They’re on their honeymoon. Honestly, Draco, you were invited to the wedding.”

“What?” he asked, astounded. “I thought that ended _ages_ ago.”

Pansy giggled.

“Oh, silly, of _course_ it did! They came back briefly just the other day to let us all know they’d be extending it. Didn’t they send you a letter?”

Draco was sure they had. He was also sure it was buried somewhere in the heap of unopened mail he had stacked nearly two feet high in the corner of his living room behind his Christmas tree where all of his mail went to die—he liked to use it to stoke his fireplace in the winter.

She seemed to take his silence as a negative, and shrugged unhelpfully at him.

“Well, you know how newlyweds are. I’m sure they _meant_ to send you a letter. Oh, Draco, come through! You can tell me all about what’s been keeping you so busy lately! I’ll listen, I promise!”

Draco smiled wanly, made his excuses, and pulled his head out of the fire on his end. For good measure, he shut off his own connection in case she decided to come through despite saying he was busy.

He paced in front of the fireplace, pondering. If they were on the mainland, how the hell were they invading his flat daily to give him ridiculous and wholly unwanted gifts?

It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t figure it out. And _what_ was he going to do about approximately 10,000 eggs?

Draco groaned into the palms of his hands and slumped back into the kitchen. Well, for starters, he was going to have to move them if he wanted to make dinner. Maybe even with some of the eggs.

Two hours later, he had written an angry and confused letter to Crabbe and Goyle and sent it off with the owl they had gifted him. Then, he grabbed the basket with the eggs, patted down his pockets to make sure he had his keys, and stepped out of his flat.

The hallway was empty, so he had absolutely no trouble making it the fifteen steps it took him to walk to the neighbouring door. He knocked timidly, and almost immediately, as if she had been waiting for it, Delia whipped the door open.

“What?” she snapped, and he shifted on his feet.

“I… erm. I happened to come by some especially nice eggs and thought you might like some.”

Delia didn’t even so much as blink at him when he proffered the basket, and Draco felt his hopes start to slip. Of _course_ she wouldn’t want eggs. Who gifted their neighbours eggs? People didn’t just _do_ that!

Well, obviously they did, because Crabbe and Goyle _had,_ and here Draco was.

“Are they poisoned?” Delia sniffed.

“I would _never,_ ” he gasped, insulted, though there was an idea.

Delia hummed once, and plucked one of the eggs from the basket, inspecting it critically. He had no idea what she was looking for or how she was evaluating it, but she seemed mostly satisfied.

“I thought I could give you these as…” he sucked in a lungful of breath, told himself to get over it no matter how much it hurt his pride, and continued: “as an apology. For the noise.”

Delia was eyeing him now, with nearly as much intensity as she had scrutinizing the eggs. His father’s lecture on what a Malfoy was—dignity, poise, grace, an unmoving pillar of stability—started up in his head and he didn’t quiver under her gaze.

Finally, she turned back to the basket.

“Eggs,” she said plainly, and Draco nodded awkwardly. “Well. It’ll do.”

Before he had even registered it, Delia had removed the basket from his hands, stepped back into her apartment, and closed the door in his face.

_Rude_ , he thought, staring at the door. Rude, but pleasing. He was still wholly undecided on whether to hex her to have a pig’s snout for the rest of the month.

Systematically, Draco worked his way through his floor, conjuring and filling baskets with eggs and trying to pawn them off on his neighbours. Whether they wanted them or not, they were _getting_ eggs for Christmas, either by stuffing the baskets into their hands directly or leaving them dangling from their doorknobs.

When he finished his floor, he did the entirety of the first floor, and then worked his way up to the second.

Harry’s was, of course, his last stop, and he fiddled with the basket nervously. This basket was different from the others. He had dressed it up with ribbons and bows that glittered and sparkled dazzlingly. He had spent a disconcerting amount of time picking through the eggs to select only the _perfect_ ones, in both shape and size. Draco was sure there wasn’t a more perfect egg basket in existence.

He was nervous up until he had knocked on Harry’s door. Then, the nerves disappeared for what must have been all of half a second of calm before the anxiety ramped up again and he was left fiddling on the spot.

He didn’t hear movement inside the flat, so he knocked again, but Harry didn’t seem to be home.

Draco didn’t know whether to feel relieved or upset over it. It would have been nice to see Harry, he thought, and then wanted to slap himself for being so ridiculous. He had absolutely no reason to be this hung up on Harry.

He debated it for a moment, then decided to leave the basket at Harry’s door, and returned to his flat.

—

Draco woke the morning of the 21st to the sight of something green and leafy on the pillow next to his face. It took him all of an hour to understand that somehow, Crabbe and Goyle had managed to sneak into his flat in the dead of night— _again—_ and decorate his flat with mistletoe.

There were eight sprigs in total. Seven were hung over the doorways in his flat: outside his bedroom, kitchen, living room, toilet, storage and laundry rooms, and one over his front door. They were all secured in place with sticking charms, and try as Draco had, they weren’t budging one bit.

He had the brief worry that he’d have to keep them up forever, and the minor meltdown that accompanied it over the thought of never being able to invite anyone over ever again before Draco snapped out of his funk. He was a Malfoy, dammit. If Crabbe and Goyle weren’t back by the middle of January, he could always hunt them down and have them dragged back—kicking and screaming if need be—to the UK so they could personally remove whatever charm it was that was keeping them glued to his doorways.

The thought of isolation for the next month and a half actually sounded quite nice once he’d finished his strop. Well, isolation aside from Harry, that was. He certainly wouldn’t mind Harry in his flat, kissing him under every door, and then some.

This was all, of course, before he had wandered into his toilet and realized that there was bushy sprig hanging a foot in the air above his head. No matter what he tried, the blasted thing was impossible to catch, dodging out of reach of his hands and completely impervious to the effects of even the most determined of spells in Draco’s arsenal.

Throughout the day, he swatted and cast spells at it, but it refused to disappear, and, reluctantly, he was forced to go about his day with it hanging over his head.

Draco sulked around his flat all day, refusing to go out until it disappeared, but as the hours ticked by and the sky went dark and it was still as obviously there as it had been when he had first woken up, he started to fear that he was going to have to walk around with it for the rest of his life.

He had loathed the thought of leaving to feed the birds where just anyone could spot him, had thrown a bag of bird feed from his bedroom window to the penned area of the garden, and had miserably gone to bed.

Magically, when he woke up the next morning, the mistletoe was gone, though several hours later, a man knocked at his door to deliver nine ducks fit for roasting.

He had tried to get the man to take them away with him, but he was having none of it, and so Draco was left with the conundrum of what to do with them all.

The owl returned later that day with a photograph of Crabbe and Goyle looking out over a body of water at sunset with the words “ _Love from Greece”_ written at the top. Draco sneered at the photo, considered tearing it up in rage, wrote another nasty letter, and sent it off with the owl.

Then he went to go find a frame for the photograph.

The next day, when he woke up, there was nothing. No hovering mistletoe, no honking geese, no Russian nesting dolls painted like parrots. Nothing.

With a sense of excitement, Draco started his day.

By the time mid-afternoon had rolled around and nothing had happened, Draco felt the beginnings of unease curl up his spine.

When dinner came and went without his beef multiplying infinitely or leaping out of the pan to strangle him, the unease turned into restless worry.

Draco would never admit it, but the complete absence of anything unusual at all panicked him.

By seven o’clock, he was biting at his knuckles and jumping at every bump, groan and creak inside and outwith his flat.

“This is ridiculous,” Draco told himself the third time he flinched and whipped around to inspect the wall when he heard the water rushing through the pipes. “Absolutely ridiculous, Malfoy. Pull yourself together.”

Maybe his letter had arrived in Greece. Maybe Crabbe and Goyle had taken pity on him.

Ten minutes later, he was leading a very unconvinced Harry Potter into his flat.

“Draco, I’m sure it’s nothing,” he was saying, and Draco stopped short, whipping around so he could glare at the man.

“Exactly!” he hissed, poking him in the chest for good measure. “It’s _nothing_ that has me concerned! They’ve been relentless in torturing me this far! There has to be something. I must have missed it.”

Harry stared at him weirdly, then made an obvious display of looking around the room.

“ _Well?_ ” Draco asked in exasperation when Harry had finished.

“ _‘Well’_ what? It’s pretty clear there’s nothing here. It’s, um, very festive, though.”

Draco pursed his lips and cast his gaze around the room. He had a Christmas tree in each corner of the room not occupied by a door, wreathes on each of the walls, mistletoe over the doorway, tinsel and a miniature magical set of Hogsmeade set on the lip of his mantle over the fireplace, and candles on every available surface.

It _was_ rather decorative, he decided after a moment, but refused to be distracted.

“There’s nothing _now_ , but that just means they haven’t done whatever it is they’re planning yet. Just wait. I’m positive they will, and when they do, you’ll be here to apprehend them.”

Harry did some more staring.

“Didn’t you say they were on their honeymoon? Wouldn’t it be cruel to have them locked up in the middle of it?”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“Your definition of cruel and mine are apparently very different. They deserve it." They'd probably even _like_ it. From what he'd heard, they had a pretty wild sex life. Draco shuddered at the thought. "Do you know what they did, Harry? I couldn’t leave my flat yesterday! I was trapped here like… like… like some sort of prisoner! In my own _home!”_

Harry made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter, but when Draco whipped around, his face was carefully rearranged into a sympathetic expression. Draco narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but Harry was speaking before he could lay into him.

“I’m sure it was all very distressing. Tell me what they’ve all done?”

He sat on the fancy new sofa Draco’d had to replace after the roosters had first shown up, and pulled Draco down next to him, so close their thighs touched. When he didn’t move away to put more space between them, Draco cleared his throat, tried to tell his heart to stop beating so quickly because this really wasn’t anything to get worked up over, and did.

“Wow,” Harry whistled when he was done. He had slung his arm along the back of the couchwhile Draco had recounted the whole, ridiculous thing, and was now drawing squiggly shapes on his shoulder. Then: “I never realized so many of the gifts were birds.”

Draco turned his head to stare at Harry.

“That's what you got out of all that?” he asked incredulously. "There are lots of birds?"

“Well," hedged Harry. "You have six roosters, eleven ducks, two swans, the nesting dolls _and_ 10,000 eggs.”

“I _must_ have given away at least 500 the other day,” Draco scowled. He’d pushed the barrels out of the way as much as possible, but their presence didn’t grow any less annoying as the days stretched on.

“That’s still a lot of eggs left. You could keep giving them away.”

“What, on the _street?”_ Draco asked, appalled.

Harry squeezed his shoulder and laughed.

“Maybe not on the street. I’d think anyone trying to give me eggs on my way home was a nutter.”

Draco rolled his eyes at the wall and relaxed into Harry’s side while they waited.

Nothing did come through the floo for the rest of the night, but Harry stayed until midnight anyway—just to be sure, he said, though Draco suspected it was less to do with what Crabbe and Goyle might have planned and more to do with the fact that he couldn’t seem to pull his hands away from Draco for longer than a few minutes at a time. Naturally, this didn’t bother Draco one bit as it was in his nature to be covetous of attention, and especially when it was being given by attractive men.

When he had shown Harry out, Draco had insisted on a kiss under the mistletoe—it was only tradition, after all, and _he_ certainly didn’t want to bring down the wrath of angry Christmas gods on himself. Harry laughingly obliged, and Draco fell asleep to the sound of his laughter replaying in his mind and the feel of his lips in bed that night.

—

Christmas Eve was a mostly boring affair. Draco spent the majority of it flopped on his couch, staring up at the ceiling in despair.

Twenty-nine hours and counting, and nothing from Crabbe and Goyle. He was both worried that _not_ having something intrusive, unwanted and disruptive invade his flat seemed to be the less normal scenario. It was almost sad to think that he had come to expect as much in only six days, and that a break in the cycle was a scary thing.

Draco should have rejoiced for the break. He should have been celebrating.

Instead, he stared at his ceiling and tried not to hyperventilate.

He spent most of the day down in the garden talking to the roosters, lamenting over the state of his life, gleefully telling them about his night with Harry, chastising them about ruining his flat, and pretending he wasn’t as pathetic as he very clearly was.

Sextus, he learned, was the most patient of the roosters, and seemed to be the most tolerant when it came to receiving his attentions. Or maybe he was just more optimistic than the rest and hoped that Draco was hiding food in his pockets.

Eventually, Delia made her appearance, complaining that he was monopolizing the communal garden area and restricting other people from using it. It had left Draco fuming, and he'd retreated to his flat to stomp around and be angry.

The day seemed to drag on until Draco was fidgety and couldn’t help but pace back and forth back inside the confines of his hallway. 

Nearly two days had passed without a “gift”. Was it too much to think they might have forgotten what they were doing? Or finally come to their senses?

The day wasn’t entirely without gifts of any kind, though: four of the building’s residents had come knocking on his door during the day to give him cookies, chocolates and a bottle of wine, which was certainly unexpected but not an unwelcome thing.

Draco was just about to call it an early night and head to bed when his floo roared to life, and out of the fire stepped a ballerina. Immediately on her heels was another. And then another, and another, until there were 11 ballerinas crammed into his living room.

Out of nowhere, music started playing.

And then they started dancing.

Draco didn’t know whether to weep out of joy or misery as they pirouetted and leaped and pranced around his living room.

It was a good job Harry was working that night, he thought, because surely the noise would have irritated him to bits. Draco was fairly certain he wouldn’t have been nearly as tolerant had _he_ an upstairs neighbour who made nearly half as much noise as he did.

At least, that was what he felt until Delia started banging on the wall in the other room and screeching like a banshee.

Draco held his face and shook, though he didn't know if it was because of the tears or the laughter.

—

Draco wasn't nearly drunk enough for his liking.

It was a pity, really, because it was his firm opinion that nobody should have to put up with his family without a few good shots of strong spirits to put them out of their misery, or at the very least, render them incapable of remembering the ordeal at all.

Draco was ready to hang himself from the chandelier with the decorative sash on the back of his chair.

His father and Aunt Bellatrix had been squabbling for most of the afternoon about each others’ deficiencies, and everyone was growing steadily more sick of it.

Draco didn’t _think_ they disliked each other, _really,_ they just got along much better when they didn’t see, think about or talk to each other.

He had routinely been sneaking off to the kitchens to top up on whatever alcohol he could get his hands on, but he had the growing suspicion that his mother had caught on to him by the way she eyed him disapprovingly every time he so much as looked at the door.

He had the feeling, however, that she was also drinking stealthily. He hadn’t caught her red handed, but she was giggling at one of the tropical houseplants in the corner of the room.

Draco really would have cared a lot more if he hadn’t been trying to avoid his cousin, who was more than a little drunk herself, and had convinced herself that they were going to get married and have nine children together.

Draco released a long sigh and fought back the urge to smack his head against the wall repeatedly until he blacked out. A trip to St. Mungo’s sounded like the perfect vehicle for a quick escape from the parlour.

The next time Draco was able to slip out of his cousin’s grasp and sneak out of the room, he booked it straight for the closest fireplace connected to the floo network. He made sure to shut the connection off on his side before he collapsed onto the couch.

Draco’s face felt pleasantly hot and his body languid, but he was restless. He wanted to do something. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his Christmas by himself.

He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the night with Harry, he thought fuzzily, remembering how they had been cuddled together on the couch the other night, and how nice it had felt.

He struggled to remember if Harry had said he would be home tonight or not. After a moment, he gave up trying to get his brain to cooperate and jumped up off his couch. There was only one way to truly know, he supposed.

—

“Harry!” Draco grinned when he opened the door. “Took you long enough!”

Harry screwed his face up in confusion.

“What?” he asked. “You mean all the stomping around and dropping things was intentional?”

“I wanted to know if you were home,” he said unconcernedly.

“You couldn’t have just knocked on my door?”

Draco looked at him as if he was mad.

“That would have been _obvious._ ”

“Right,” Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking an eyebrow sardonically. “Because obvious is bad.”

“Obvious is the plebeian thing,” Draco corrected him, then got fed up with Harry lingering on his doorstep and pulled him in by the wrist. He leaned back against the door when he had closed it and peered at Harry from under lowered lids.

Harry looked good—he always looked annoyingly good, and Draco had imbibed enough brandy over the day that he could freely admit to wanting Harry and the desire to act on it.

He crowded in close to Harry, invading his personal space.

“You’ll soon find, Harry, that I’m anything but obvious,” he said.

Harry had started to respond, something sarcastic that Draco was sure he would have laughed at had he been given the opportunity to fully say it, but Draco had had enough waiting, enough flirting. He felt confident, he felt sexy, and he wanted Harry.

Impulsively, he pressed his lips against Harry’s, feeling the way he continued to mouth the rest of the word he had been in the middle of before his brain caught up and he kissed Draco back.

Draco fisted the front of Harry’s shirt and pulled him the rest of the way forward until they were pressed against each other, though the kiss remained soft.

Harry groaned against him, one hand coming up to circle around his back, the other going to his chest, but instead of grabbing on to Draco, he pushed back, forcing space between them.

“Are you drunk?” Harry asked sombrely.

“No. Only braced. It’s mostly worn off now.”

He leaned against Harry more firmly, circled his hands up around Harry's neck and closed the space between them.

"I'm completely in my right mind," he murmured, punctuating each word with a kiss.

Harry stayed stiff against him for a moment before he relaxed back into Draco’s hold and responded to the kiss.

It stayed gentle as they explored each other. They’d kissed a handful of times since the first time in the garden, though never like this. Draco could easily get used to kissing Harry. The feel of his tongue against Draco’s, the way his hands clenched rhythmically against his sides, the way he leaned his weight against Draco, trusting to hold them both up was addicting.

The thought of Harry pliant and loose-limbed beneath him had Draco’s blood surging. He could feel heat bloom in his stomach at the thought, the prick of heat just the bearable side of icy as he gave over to lust.

He wrestled his hands under Harry’s shirt, just above the waistband of his trousers, revelling in the hot skin there. Harry's breath hitched against his jaw, and then he was attacking Draco's mouth with fervour.

“I want you,” he breathed into Harry’s mouth, walking them backwards toward his bedroom.

Harry groaned and bit into Draco’s bottom lip, hiking his thigh up Draco’s leg and grinding their hips together in obvious reply.

Draco gasped at the feeling, quickly hardening in his pants as Harry rubbed against him.

“I want you in me,” Harry moaned into his ear, dragging Draco’s hands down his back to place them on his bum.

“You’re a bloody tease,” Draco complained. They were so close to the bed, he disentangled Harry from him and pushed him backwards, watching hungrily as Harry bounced on his bedspread before he positioned himself on his back, staring up at Draco sultrily.

“Obviousness has its perks every now and then,” Harry said, lifting the hem of his shirt to fiddle with the button of his jeans underneath. He didn't move to undo it, though, just watched Draco as he played with the metal of it, deliberately teasing Draco as he slowly started to push his jeans down enough to reveal more of his happy trail.

Draco’s mouth went dry as more of Harry’s skin was bared to him. His stomach clenched tightly when Harry sat up to discard his shirt, then settled back on the bed, propped up on his elbows, hands once more returning to his jeans.

“Going to stand there all night?” he asked teasingly, and reminded that he could move, that he was a free participant in the activity, Draco couldn’t stand just watching anymore.

Without another thought, he was crawling on top of Harry, straddling his shimmying hips, leaning down to lick a broad stripe down Harry’s chest. He grinned against the salty skin as Harry’s breath hitched, back arching as he thrust his chest up and into Draco’s mouth.

Draco licked and sucked his way down Harry’s chest, stoping to lave attention to his nipples which had Harry crying out happily before he moved on, following the trail of sparse hair down his abdomen until he was nosing at the band of Harry’s jeans.

The button was undone but had been abandoned when Draco had joined him. One of Harry’s hands was in Draco’s hair, cupping his skull. When Draco flicked his eyes up, he was unprepared for the sight Harry made stretched out on his bed. His other hand was caressing his neck and chest. The sensual slide of it over his sternum made Draco’s stomach tighten in excitement. He was watching Draco, eyes half-lidded and sexy, mouth parted. When he realized Draco was looking, Harry’s tongue peeked out and swiped over his bottom lip as though he could still taste Draco there.

Draco groaned into the bulge of Harry’s jeans, fingers clenching against Harry’s sides. He dug his thumbs into Harry’s hipbones and dragged them down, pulling his jeans and undergarments with him. Harry shifted above him, hand withdrawing so he could brace himself on it as he raised his hips, allowing Draco to pull the fabric down. When he had removed them, Draco reclaimed his place, kissing the velvety skin just under his navel.

He heard Harry sigh his name, but couldn't bring himself to look up again. Harry’s cock was pressing against his chin, pulsing with heat, insistent.

Draco shifted, pressed his mouth against the underside of it and pressed a kiss there, mouthing at the stiff line of it until Harry was squirming and flushed.

“Don’t tease me,” Harry complained breathily, hitching his hips to get more of Draco’s mouth on him. “I’ve thought about your mouth all week.”

The fire in Draco’s groin burned brighter at that, and he ground down against Harry’s leg, desperate for friction even as he took Harry into his mouth. He slurped eagerly at the head, emboldened by Harry’s cry and the way his muscles tensed and bunched up under his hands.

Harry had thought about this. Had probably lay awake at night in his bed, directly below Draco’s, and thought about Draco doing this to him.

He wondered if Harry had thought about him at work, while he was out with friends. The idea of it made Draco all hot and tingly, and suddenly, just having Harry in his mouth wasn’t enough.

He pulled off Harry without warning, smirking at his whine at the loss of his mouth. He sat up abruptly, cursing himself for not having done it earlier, and started to strip his clothes off. Harry came eagerly to his aid, pressing his hands under Draco’s jumper and all but ripping it off his head while Draco focused on his trousers. Harry batted his hands away after a moment, roughly flipping them so that Draco was the one with his back on the bed and Harry hovering over him this time.

“God, the things you do to me,” Harry moaned. He dove down to suck violent bruises into Draco’s pale chest and stomach as he shimmied Draco’s trousers down his legs.

Draco couldn’t do anything but gasp and fist the sheets as Harry found out firsthand how sensitive his skin were.

“ _Harry_ ,” he whimpered, unable to feel shame at the wanton way it came out. Harry sunk his teeth into the vulnerable skin on his sides, and Draco cried out in ecstasy. He pressed his hips up, desperate for anything Harry might give him.

Harry crawled back up his body too soon for his liking. His cheeks were flushed, lips puffy and shiny from sucking hickeys onto Draco's torso, and he had a pleased look on his face that Draco wanted to taste.

“Where’s your lube?” Harry murmured into his mouth, and Draco jolted, floundered for the bedside table, and blindly withdrew the bottle from it.

Harry plucked it from his fingers, sat back on Draco’s hips and grinned wickedly. He flipped the lid open and coated his fingers generously, then, he placed his uncoated hand in the middle of Draco’s chest and lifted himself up, reaching behind himself with the other hand.

“Fuck,” Draco said, watching the way his hand disappeared from sight and the wet sounds as Harry started stretching himself. “That’s so hot.”

Above him, Harry smirked, though a moment later, his expression went droopy and lax as he hit his prostate, eyelids fluttering closed. He bit his lip and Draco was done being a passive observer.

He reached for Harry’s cock, feeling it pulse in his hand, and started pumping it slowly, greedily watching Harry's expression as he fingered himself. Harry shivered against him, pushing forward into his hand.

“Draco,” he moaned, fingers clenching against Draco’s sternum. He called out Draco’s name again, voice higher pitched and sounding needy, hips rolling against Draco.

Draco reached around with his other hand, desperate to feel what Harry was doing to himself, to see how ready he was. He found Harry’s hole, stuffed with two of his fingers, and bit the inside of his lip. He touched the ring of muscle and felt how tight the slick skin was around Harry’s fingers, the way he seemed to be clenching down on them like they weren’t enough. Curiously, he pressed closer, squeezed the tip of his index in along with Harry’s, and felt Harry still and tense above him.

Carefully, he slid it in a little further, past the first knuckle, loving the sweet glide against Harry’s fingers as they pumped into him together.

Harry dropped down on top of him, no longer holding himself erect and kissed Draco’s neck between pants.

“God, Draco, you’re going to be the death of me,” he murmured, and for that, Draco pressed in a little further, twisting and moving Harry’s hand with his own.

He turned and kissed the side of Harry’s head with a strained, hysterical sounding laugh. He wasn’t faring much better. Having Harry rub against him, hearing his breathy sounds, seeing his expression as he fingered himself and now helping to stretch him was driving Draco crazy.

“Then let’s let it be the little death,” he replied, equally quietly, and withdrew from Harry’s stuffed passage. Harry shifted above him as he did the same, and Draco grabbed the bottle of lube that lay beside them, coordinating with Harry to slick himself between their bodies, and then he was pushing into Harry.

Draco wasn’t a virgin—this wasn’t the first time he’d topped during sex, either, but sinking into somebody’s body never got old. He had to tense his thighs and stop every couple of moments so he didn’t harm Harry or come too quickly. The feeling was amazing—Harry was clenching and relaxing rhythmically as he pressed in, making Draco dizzy with pleasure.

Once he had bottomed out, he released a shaky breath, feeling Harry do the same against his clavicle, and squeezed Harry’s side comfortingly when he started trembling.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled. He sucked in a breath and squeezed around Draco. “It’s been a while.”

Draco laughed feverishly, and pulled Harry up so he could kiss him properly.

It seemed to help relax him. Draco experimentally rolled his hips, shivering at the way Harry clung to him.

Harry was heavy on him, his weight smothering in a way that felt fantastic, but Draco was selfish and wanted more. He couldn’t move far enough to thrust properly as he was, and the heat of Harry around him was feverish, driving him mad with lust and frustration. He couldn't move enough to give himself more than the small, teasing thrusts.

“Come on, Harry. Help me.”

Slowly, Harry pulled himself up, using Draco’s shoulders to steady himself. His eye were hazy with lust, but he watched Draco intently as he lifted himself up off Draco and dropped down again sharply. They both cried out as Draco slid back in, but Harry was just as impatient, just as selfish in his pursuit of pleasure, and was rising up again without waiting, hands squeezing Draco’s shoulders.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Harry cried as he impaled himself over and over again.

Draco loved the sounds Harry was making—he was thrusting up as much as he was able when Harry came down against him. Together, they chased their orgasms, fucking furiously against each other.

Draco was close. The feeling was coiling in his gut, sending sparks of pleasure through the pit of his belly with every wanton sound they were making. The squelch of lube should have been disgusting, but it wasn’t; Draco found himself being turned on by the sound as much as by Harry’s moans.

“Ah! Come on!” he almost sobbed, yanking Harry’s hips. He was so close.

Harry was making noises that like the breath was being punched out of him. He had squeezed his eyes tightly shut. His glasses hung low on his nose and Draco found him unbearably attractive, and then he didn’t have the wherewithal to think anymore because the pleasure was suddenly too much inside him, and he was pulled under its wave and into climax.

He heard Harry cry out in distress as he stopped moving against Harry, only capable of pathetic thrusts as his orgasm pulsed through him, but he had enough coordination left to drag one hand, sluggish and weak, down the sweaty skin of Harry's hip to grab his weeping cock. He swiped at the leaking head and started jacking him, twisting his palm to gather more precome to make the glide even more slick every time he was at the tip. Harry threw his head back and ground down on him viciously, and then he was coming, too, in stripes all across Draco’s chest, breathing hard.

Draco skimmed his fingertips up and down Harry's back as they lay panting against each other and recovering.

He summoned a washcloth from the bathroom, too lazy to get up, cleaned them both up, and then settled under the blankets with his back to Harry’s chest.

Harry was tracing shapes against his stomach. His skin was still sensitive enough that it felt tingly, but the movements were slow and relaxed, and Draco hummed happily.

“Was that better than Christmas at your parents?” Harry asked, dragging his nose along Draco’s neck. Draco wanted to turn to stare at him incredulously, to roll his eyes or to flick him—he didn't know which—but it felt so nice, he stayed put.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” he retorted, kissing the arm under his head to soften the sting of the words. “There’s no other way I’d rather spend Christmas.”

Harry laughed quietly and squeezed him tightly.

“Me, too,” he admitted, and Draco, safe in the knowledge that Harry would never see it, allowed himself to grin incandescently at the wall, incandescently happy that he was here, in Draco's bed. “Happy Christmas, Draco.”

Christmas was amazing. His favourite time of the year, really—or it would be if all Christmases ended like this one had.

“Happy Christmas, Harry,” he replied languorously before he  was lulled to sleep by the soft movement against his stomach, cuddled against Harry, warm and stupidly happy.

—

When the first crash sounded, Draco was unceremoniously shoved over the side of the bed and hit the floor with a pained groan.

The sound of metal striking metal filled his bedroom, and he blinked his eyes open to see a veritable army of clapping monkeys crowded around the opening of his bedroom, all clashing their cymbals and laughing mechanically at them.

Harry, who had pushed him over the side, was still on the bed, wand out and was pointing it at them threateningly, as if they were some kind of dangerous criminal.

As he watched, Harry blinked slowly at the clapping monkeys like he couldn’t decide if they were real or not, and slowly lowered his wand.

“Is this how you wake up every day?” he turned to ask Draco. He looked surprised to find him on the floor. “Shit, sorry.”

Draco grumpily accepted the hand Harry extended to pull him up and glared at him.

“You’re lucky you’re such a good lay for as lousy as you are in the morning,” he told Harry superciliously. He had planned to kiss him, but Delia got there first, banging on the wall and shouting obscenities, and instead, he sighed and reached for his wand to banish the awful things that were clapping and laughing undisturbed.

The noise stopped abruptly, but Delia carried on. Draco caught the tail end of an impressive slur before he resignedly grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him from the bedroom into the kitchen.

“Believe it or not,” he told Harry, setting the kettle on for tea. “This has become the new definition of normal for me.”

Harry hummed and settled in next to Draco at the table.

“No _wonder_ Delia’s been so incensed since you moved in.”

Draco frowned and went to flick him, but Harry caught his hand instead and brought it to his mouth, kissing the back of his hand. Draco rolled his eyes, but let him keep his hand, and received a squeeze for it.

“Where did all the eggs go?” Harry asked a moment later, craning his head around to look for them.

Draco shot him a sly look out of the corner of his eye as the kettle went off. He stood to go get it.

“Someone I know advised me to give them away, so I did.”

“What, on the street?” Harry asked, surprised.

Draco laughed at him as he returned to his seat, pressing the second mug into Harry’s hands. It amused him that Harry was parroting his words back at him. It had to have been intentional, but it put him in a good mood all the same.

“To charity. Don’t look at me like that, it was all to make sure my name ended up on the nice list.”

Harry looked at him with affection and humour, and to Draco's annoyance and despite his words,  _didn't_ look any less impressed with Draco's statement.

“So it was an entirely self-serving action,” he teased.

Draco tried to look haughtily down his nose at Harry.

“Of course. What was I going to do with 10,000 eggs and ducks? Let some other sod figure it out. It’s not _my_ problem anymore.”

“How selfish of you,” Harry said drily. “And the roosters?”

Draco smiled wickedly.

“I imagine my parents will be trying to find them right around now.”

Harry gaped at him.

“You let them loose on your parents?”

Draco’s smile only grew as he contemplated own brilliance. He’d taken them with him when he’d flooed over the day before and let them run free before he’d gone to join his family. Before he’d left, he had instructed the house elves not to help his parents find the birds—had convinced them they were his present to his father and that part of the fun was letting his father find them.

He could imagine his father running around the Manor, hungover and the complete opposite of poise and elegance in his pajamas as he searched for the roosters.

“You’re terrible,” Harry said, but he was grinning just as hard as Draco was, so he didn’t take the criticism too seriously. “You know,” he said, leaning close, “this might be enough to put you back on the Naughty list.”

Draco smirked. The way Harry said that, it sounded like something Draco definitely wanted for himself. That wasn’t the deterrent Harry probably thought it would be.

“It’s in my nature to be naughty,” he flirted. He knew Harry wanted a kiss, so he inched closer but didn’t close the distance entirely. He wondered if he could tease Harry into a repeat performance of last night, or maybe into fucking him this time.

Harry, to his satisfaction, was breathing more heavily than he normally did and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Draco glanced down and saw the beginnings of a bulge in his pants.

“It’s not nice to be naughty,” he murmured, the words brushing Draco’s lips.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked. “Are you going to punish me for being a bad boy?”

“There’s an idea,” Harry purled. “Do you think you deserve it?”

Draco did. He really, _really_ did.

—

It was slightly mortifying, Draco thought, to be interrupted in the middle of sex by a Howler.

It had never happened before, which he was incredibly grateful for, and hoped to never have happen again. Nothing killed the mood quite like hearing his father roar on about inappropriate behaviour while he had Harry inside him, which was, he thought, quite inappropriate and rude in and of itself.

Harry had alternated between groaning in embarrassment and laughing into his throat until the letter had ripped itself up, and then it would have just been weird to continue.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only embarrassing letter to be had. Delia had slipped a letter under his door, informing Draco that should he continue his upsetting behaviour, she would be calling any other patrol officer than Harry to deal with the complaint unless he planned on sleeping with them, too.

Harry had taken one look at the letter, then Draco’s face, and laughed long and loud until Draco had sniffed and said that he might just, since Harry was clearly useless.

That had sobered him up pretty quickly, and he had made sure Draco knew exactly how useful he could be, and that under no circumstances would another officer be “helping”.

He'd had another letter from Crabbe and Goyle, too, wishing him a happy Christmas and letting him know that the monkeys were the grand finale in their scheme of gift giving. Draco released a relieved sigh before wondering if he shouldn't pay them back for what they had put him through. Maybe he'd get them puffskeins. Maybe even some flobberworms, too, just to really drive them up the wall. 

Maybe he'd wait until  _next_ Christmas to gift them, just so they wouldn't see it coming.

That sounded like a good plan, he thought, but for now, they'd unwittingly given him the best gift of all: Harry Potter leering at him on the other end of the sofa, demanding a strip tease that Draco was all too happy to give.


End file.
